Sirilyan: Why I'm Not A Salon Table Talk Subscriber For The Politics: "What is being marketed [in some stupid Sprite commercial] is the very pernicious idea that every young black man can go the same route that Kobe Bryant did, which leads to thousands of young black men trying and failing."SnideGrrl: what route did kobe bryant go?Sirilyan: He skipped college to play in the NBA.Sirilyan: Remember, kids, if you try you'll probably fail! Only losers try to do anything! Crush all your hopes and dreams now!SnideGrrl: hehSirilyan: What a sickening attitude to have. I cheer on the commercial if that sort of crushing cynicism is the alternative.SnideGrrl: seriously.Sirilyan: Especially since if you believe that you should give up basketball because you're no Kobe Bryant, you should give up EVERYTHING! You're no Richard Feynman. You're no John Kenneth Galbraith. You're no Oprah Wnfrey. You're no Ralph Nader. You're no... etc. etc. etc. until you're stuck in cubicle 4J8 for the rest of your life trying to pay off a $22,000 library science degree.SnideGrrl: bwahahahaSnideGrrl: wow, you just described my life.Sirilyan: I told you to keep playing basketball!SnideGrrl: the only difference: i am in cubicle 4E167 and i have 20,000 in student loans for a sociology degree.

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Hmm.. I saw this happening in the inner city Birmingham. All the kids there would spend the very little cash they had on material stuff (shirts/hats/shoes/etc..) that had sports stars images on them. They would put a lot of effort into sports and spend all their cash on sports related products, thereby making the sports marketing companies rich, and not doing anything to pull themselves out of the economic valley that they keep living in. It made me kinda sad. I saw this and realized that yet another generation of people would be stuck in the downtrodden inner city while the CEO of some marketing company got even more ridiculously rich.